This invention relates to a sliding tray assembly which may be used, for instance, in delivering drink bottles or cans using gravity, to the front of the tray. In particular, the invention deals with one or more trays having a surrounding wall which remains in place during normal use, but by slightly raising the front or lowest end of the tray, may be slid forward so that the rear of the tray may be filled without necessarily disturbing the bottles or cans present in the tray""s front. This device is especially useful as an adapter to be used on the shelves of pre-existing refrigeration units. It may also be a shelf itself for original or replacement shelves inside a refrigeration unit.
It is now common that fruit juices, soft drinks, and other blended and mixed beverages are sold in small containers containing 8 to 30 ounces of liquid. They are commonly sold as single purchases and are sold from a refrigeration unit. The refrigerator style units are very unlike the old chest units where drinks were simply dumped into an open refrigerated chest. These modern tall refrigeration units often use interior shelves and the newer styles use trays which rack the beverages in a single line allowing the containers to slide towards the front of the shelf under the influence of gravity. Said another way: if the front drink bottle is removed, the remaining drink bottles slide by themselves towards the front of the tray or shelf. This movement provides another drink or beverage conveniently at the front of the tray.
Reloading these beverage trays is not always straightforward. Often, in refrigeration units which face outward from large open refrigerated rooms, the drinks are simply added from the back of the tray. However, if the back of the refrigeration unit is solid, that is to say, without a door, it is often necessary to push the front drinks back up the tray to load the newer drinks onto the front. This, in itself, makes rotation of stock difficult. Removal of the older drinks is therefore necessary if the older drinks are to be sold first.
This invention simplifies the addition of fresh beverage stock to the rear of the shelves.
Typical vending machines used for dispensing food or drink containers are those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,937, to Adams. The Adams device is a can dispensing apparatus in which the cans, unlike the typical use of the inventive device described therein, uses a chute having cans on their side which tend to roll through a convoluted path to a dispensing site at the front of the chute. These chutes are loaded from the top.
Another fairly typical vending machine is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,646, to Maldanis et al. The device shown there uses a number of movable shelves which, for display purposes, move up and down on a carousel. When the selected shelf is in the appropriate position, the food or drink is selected using electronic means.
Although no apparatus similar to that apparatus described herein is known, other pull-out shelves are known. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,374 to Sandvig, describes a sliding tray assembly fitting into a kitchen cabinet. The device described in Sandvig supports a tray panel and guide channels located at the edge of the panel. The edges are affixedly attached to the furniture into which it is placed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,397,606 describes an article handling apparatus having a number of trays arranged side by side. The trays are slideable from a larger shelf. Further, there is a shelf caddy onto which the trays may be slid when being refilled or the like.
Drop down or tilting shelf display assemblies are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,542, to Frederickson. The Frederickson patent describes only a shelf assembly which allows gravity feed of various types of merchandise (see FIG. 2) but does not deal with the inventive concept employed in our invention, that of sliding the shelves outwardly from a cabinet for loading canned or bottled merchandise onto the back of the shelves.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,159, to Stubblefield, shows a pull-out drop-down shelf structure which is significantly more complicated than the inventive device and utilizes specific shelf backing which supports a complete shelf at the edge.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,738,019, to Parker shows adjustable shelf assembly which is designed in such a way that the shelf, itself, rotates from supports at the rear of the shelf. FIG. 3A there shows a runner assembly mounting means which allows a complete shelf to be pulled out.
None of the documents discussed above discloses a device which is similar to the pull-out trays described and claimed herein.
As noted above, the invention is a pull-out tray assembly for holding and delivering containers, usually drink containers, using gravity feed. The containers themselves typically are placed in a line in the tray and are set on their bottoms rather than on their sides. Central to this invention is the concept that the front of a tray, or a group of trays, may be slightly lifted and the tray or trays slid forward and down for ease of introducing additional containers to the back of the tray.